Kurosaki Rei picked up the ring and carefully examined its detailed attributes.
Soul Devourer
Origin: Terminus Space
Quality: Purple
Equipment Type: Accessory
Durability: 100/100
Usage Requirement: 30 Spirit
Details:
A ring crafted by Supporter No. █████ using Thunder Spirit Gold and Void-Permeating Stone as the main materials. It possesses outstanding growth potential.
Equipment Skill 1: Soul Devour (Passive)
Effect: Soul Devourer can consume high-quality spiritual energy to grow, including but not limited to natural energy and dark matter energy. The first time it devours a new type of energy, it gains a large amount of growth progress. With subsequent devouring under the same energy concentration, the growth effect will gradually diminish.
Current Growth Progress: 0%
Equipment Skill 2: Spirituality (Passive)
Effect: While wearing Soul Devourer, the pioneer gains increased spell resistance, and neural reaction speed is increased by 30%.
Equipment Skill 3: Spiritual Energy Surge (Passive / Active)
Effect: While wearing Soul Devourer, the pioneer's attacks deal additional true damage equal to 3% of their Soul Source maximum.
When actively activated, Soul Devourer consumes 10% of the pioneer's Soul Source per second, and attacks deal additional true damage equal to 10% of their Soul Source maximum.
[Note: This skill can trigger at most once per second.]
Equipment Score: 200+
Evaluation: Enough talk—light up that blue bar!
Although it was only a purple-tier item, the effects of this equipment were extremely powerful, and its mechanics were excellent.
The sailor-uniform girl had indeed forged it according to Kurosaki Rei's needs. The second skill, Spirituality, was a standard accessory bonus, and a very strong one at that—proof of her high-level craftsmanship.
The third skill, Spiritual Energy Surge, was downright insane. This was the first time Kurosaki Rei had ever seen a purple-tier piece of equipment capable of dealing true damage. And the amount of true damage scaled off his Soul Source maximum—the higher his Spirit attribute and the longer his "blue bar," the more true damage it dealt.
Although Terminus Space didn't fully numericalize an explorer's Soul Source and Life Source, combat logs could still show temporary numerical values. For example, when he slashed an enemy, the auxiliary system would display how many points of damage were dealt.
From Kurosaki Rei's analysis, if two explorers had the same Spirit and Constitution attributes, then their Soul Source and Life Source values—if expressed numerically—should be roughly equivalent.
That meant that with Spiritual Energy Surge actively enabled, triggering the true-damage effect ten times would be enough to nearly kill an explorer with stats comparable to his.
Of course, at present this skill wasn't completely broken. After all, once activated, it drained 10% of his Soul Source per second. After ten seconds, his Soul Source would be completely empty.
And once an explorer's Soul Source hit zero, they would fall into unconsciousness or a state of extreme mental fatigue. So relying purely on this effect to kill an enemy wasn't very realistic.
But Kurosaki Rei just so happened to have ways to recover Soul Source during combat.
His Prison Demon could drain mana.
In other words, he could keep Spiritual Energy Surge active while absorbing Soul Source at the same time—essentially becoming a perpetual-motion machine.
In that case, the additional true damage equal to 10% of his Soul Source maximum became extremely significant, allowing him to steadily and reliably chew through an enemy's Life Source.
Most importantly, Soul Devourer was still only a purple-tier item. Once it evolved to Legendary, all of its existing skills would grow even stronger, and Spiritual Energy Surge would become far more practical.
In summary, this piece of equipment had terrifying growth potential. Perhaps once it reached a certain tier, even the trigger limit would be removed.
Seeing that Kurosaki Rei had gone silent after looking at the ring, the sailor-uniform girl cautiously spoke up:
"Let's make this clear first—refunds are fine, but can we discuss it? Please don't return the bed."
Kurosaki Rei shook his head.
"I'm very satisfied. Let's settle the remaining payment."
Though it wasn't Legendary-tier, Soul Devourer was by no means inferior. Growth-type equipment was essentially a one-time purchase with permanent ownership—the long-term returns weren't something a simple Legendary accessory could compare to.
Hearing this, the sailor-uniform girl beamed.
"That's great, that's great! I was afraid you wouldn't recognize its value. I'm telling you—don't嫌养成麻烦. Growth-type equipment is the true path!"
"In the long run, it really does save a lot of money—assuming I stay alive long enough," Kurosaki Rei replied.
Truthfully, he wasn't entirely sure of the exact value of growth-type equipment either. He hadn't seen any on the market before, so he couldn't tell whether he had made a profit or a loss.
"You have to live a long life," the sailor-uniform girl said as she tidied up the messy workbench. "I'm counting on you to come back and spend more money here."
"And besides, this isn't really about saving money."
"Then what is it about?" Kurosaki Rei asked curiously.
But she waved her hand dismissively.
"Explaining it to you would be too much trouble. I'm exhausted—I need to sleep."
Seeing the dark circles under her eyes, Kurosaki Rei guessed she had probably worked nonstop for days to finish Soul Devourer, so he didn't press the matter further.
Leaving the shop, he slipped the ring onto his finger and used the hidden-equipment function provided by Terminus Space to conceal it, eliminating any foreign sensation—very convenient.
He tried injecting his own Soul Source into Soul Devourer, but its growth progress didn't change at all. It seemed feeding it with his own energy didn't work—or perhaps pure Soul Source didn't count, since it was already categorized as his own energy.
Back in his room, Kurosaki Rei used Thunder Breathing to generate some crude lightning and let Soul Devourer absorb it.
This time, it worked—but the growth progress only increased by 0.01%.
Realizing that these methods were far too slow, Kurosaki Rei gave up on trying to nurture Soul Devourer within the space. He decided to find more suitable energy sources to feed it once he entered a mission world.
[Revenue distribution for the Kengan Ashura world in the current cycle has been settled. Total: 14,000 Terminus Coins. Please collect via mailbox.]
Just as he finished studying the ring, Kurosaki Rei received another notification from Terminus Space—and only then did he realize he'd just gotten paid again.
If not for the reminder, he would've almost forgotten that he could "collect rent" once a month.
After clearing the Demon Slayer world, he had also obtained that world's core. Now that it had been absorbed by Terminus Space, according to the space's evaluation, the Demon Slayer world would generate 31,800 Terminus Coins per natural space month—more than double the income of the Kengan world.
Unfortunately, that income would only be available starting next month. The world was still in the integration phase, leaving him nothing to do but wait.
After collecting his revenue, Kurosaki Rei's funds became much more comfortable. He first went to the Equipment Enhancement Hall and spent a little over 5,000 Terminus Coins to enhance Soul Devourer to +8, then headed straight to the training grounds.
Being rich meant being bold. He directly opened a paid Mirror Arena, continuing his sparring sessions with Shen Wulong from the Kengan world. Using the space's adjustment function, he could scale Shen Wulong's attributes to match his own.
At present, Kurosaki Rei felt this was the most cost-effective way to raise combat proficiencies. Sparring like this for about three days would usually increase each of his combat specializations by one level.
By the day before entering the next world, Kurosaki Rei finally ended his training and reviewed the results.
After several worlds of adventure—and extensive "tool-man" practice with Shen Wulong—his highest combat specialization had reached Level 37.
Master-Level Swordsmanship Specialization
Level: Lv.37/40
Specialization Effect:
The explorer has achieved considerable accomplishment in swordsmanship and can be called a master of the art. When attacking with blade-type main weapons, damage dealt is increased by 74%.
At this pace, Kurosaki Rei felt that after one more world, he might break through into a new realm and reach Grandmaster level in combat specialization.
Over the past month, aside from refining combat skills, he hadn't neglected physical training either. Combined with the Divine Breath bed and the passive Spiritual Pressure cultivation through the Origin Spirit Seed, his attributes had undergone another update.
[Pioneer No. 008, your naked attributes are as follows (including equipment and title bonuses):]
Constitution: 44 (+1)
Strength: 37 (+1)
Agility: 37 (+1)
Spirit: 40 (+3)
Charisma: 5
Luck: 2
Spirit had increased the most—mainly because the Spiritual Pressure cultivation method, combined with the Origin Spirit Seed's passive slot, was absurdly effective, and sleeping on Divine Breath further boosted the speed.
His physical attributes, on the other hand, had slowed in growth. Likely because his overall strength had risen too high—ordinary training no longer yielded dramatic gains.
After completing these upgrades, Kurosaki Rei returned to the Arena.
In half a day, under Snowwind's almost ghost-seeing expression, he blew her head apart with the Barbarian King's Bow.
That day, every explorer watching the Arena had their minds blown—because within a single day, they witnessed the Arena's top rank change hands twice.
Snowwind had taken first place in the morning. As an explorer, she had to enter a mission world every two weeks. Since she last met Kurosaki Rei, she'd already cleared another world and grown significantly stronger. She crushed the previous first-place holder without effort.
But before her Unrivaled title had even warmed up, Terminus Space notified her that a new challenger was about to challenge her mirror image, asking whether she wanted to descend personally to defend the title.
Since she was already in the space, Snowwind naturally didn't want to let her mirror fight. Besides, she was curious—who could possibly challenge her so soon?
The moment she entered the Arena, she saw a familiar face.
In the Arena, everyone freely used appraisal skills. When Snowwind saw that Kurosaki Rei's base attributes were still under 40, she froze—briefly suspecting he had some kind of concealment ability.
But then Kurosaki Rei's aura began to climb.
First, Zanpakutō Shikai.
Then, Breathing Technique burst.
Finally, Demonic State activation.
His attributes skyrocketed, jumping straight to around 46–47.
Even so, Snowwind was still baffled.
Why was Kurosaki Rei ranked high enough to face her?
She was a full-fledged Tier-2 war god with all four main attributes maxed at 50. In fact, the top ten in the Tier-2 Arena all had 50-point main attributes.
She simply couldn't understand how Kurosaki Rei had reached this rank.
But very quickly… she understood.
Although Kurosaki Rei was at a disadvantage in raw attributes, the way he fought was like a berserker—yet every move carried a profound subtlety she couldn't fully grasp. In every exchange, Kurosaki Rei made the optimal choice, gradually forcing her into a dead end.
When she used a skill to disengage and create space, trying to catch her breath—
Kurosaki Rei drew that heavy-looking longbow.
In the next instant, she was teleported out of the Arena.
Stepping out of the rest room, Snowwind's usually icy expression was filled with something strange. She looked at Kurosaki Rei emerging from the opposite side, opened her mouth… then couldn't find the words.
She was normally calm and taciturn—but just now, she'd really wanted to curse someone out.
The problem was, she'd only held that title for half a day. She hadn't even had the chance to use it in a mission world.
And she was about to advance in the next world—which meant she would forever miss out on experiencing the Tier-2 Unrivaled title.
Meanwhile, Kurosaki Rei greeted her politely.
"Good fight."
"We'd better not meet in a mission world," Snowwind said again, repeating the words she'd spoken the last time they parted—though their meaning had subtly changed.
Kurosaki Rei waved cheerfully as he left. On his way back, he received another notification.
[Mission world will open in 2 hours. Please prepare.]
[Target World: Derived World — One Piece]
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